The Ohio Department of Higher Education recently approved $5 million
in funding for projects that will enhance the quality of higher
education throughout the state while making it more affordable for
students by stabilizing or reducing tuition rates. Bowling Green State
University received $750,000 for its PK-16 Pathways of Promise (P³) project.

P³ proposes to develop and field-test a scalable model for
identifying key performance indicators of college-readiness in
university data systems. The data is then shared with PK-12 partners,
building a system for continuous program improvement for institutions
of higher education and local education agencies.

Dawn Shinew, dean of the College
of Education and Human Development, was excited to
learn the project had been funded. “This project makes a lot of sense
and has the potential to have a significant impact, not only for
BGSU’s students, but for P-20 education in the state of Ohio.”

Shinew serves as a co-principal investigator on the project along
with Dr. Brian Campbell, associate dean for Operations, Analytics and
Assessment, and Dr. Matthew Lavery, assistant professor, School of
Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy.

The original pilot of the program began in summer 2016 after Shinew
noticed a theme in conversations she had had with local
superintendents – they didn’t have good data about how their students
do in college. Shinew discovered that the data was available, it was
just a matter of what could be pulled that was meaningful and
respecting the students’ privacy. In June, data was shared with six
local school districts: Bowling Green, Springfield, Fostoria, Otsego
and Maumee and Toledo School for the Arts, with good feedback.

“The Bowling Green City Schools participated in the pilot data
summit and found that the data was very relevant and
informative to our administrative team,” Superintendent Francis Scruci
wrote in a letter supporting the new project. “This project will no
doubt have a positive impact on the college readiness of our student
as they begin their undergraduate education.”

The P³ project continues the pilot model by including the University
of Toledo and expanding to 11 school districts in year one and 20
local school districts by year two.

Data provided in the original project included performance on math
and English placement tests, performance in selected benchmark
courses, like biology, and first semester grade point averages. Shinew
said that now that the award has been announced, the team will work
with the University of Toledo to identify common data points useful to
the local school districts.

“As superintendent of the Perrysburg School District, I appreciate
the importance of sound data regarding the outcomes of our students,”
Thomas Hosler wrote in support of the proposal. “[I] value the
professional development opportunities such data presents for our
administrators, teachers and staff members.”

Year two will include increased tracking of what school districts
can do with this data to make sure their students are college ready.
This could include professional development related to revisions in
curriculum and/or instruction. Through increased college readiness,
the program could also help to decrease the number of
remedial/non-credit bearing courses, repeating courses with failing
grades and the rate of students leaving colleges and universities
because of an unsuccessful transition.

Andrew Sprang, the superintendent of Fostoria City Schools,
commented on the impact in his letter of support for the expanded
project: “This will provide us data to evaluate our programming and
additional resources needed to help our students succeed in the future.”

Eventually, Shinew would like to see a model developed that could be
scalable to the state, which would make Ohio the only state in the
country with a systematic process for bridging the gap between local
school districts and institutions of higher education.

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